Jennifer Rostal, Author at Perficient Blogs

Working Agreements for Team Cohesion

Jennifer Rostal — Tue, 03 May 2022 18:00:51 +0000

This is the second post in my series focused on individuals and teams. In this blog I will share how working agreements help a group of disparate individuals become a team.

A team is a group of individuals who come together to work towards a common goal. But a group of individuals doesn’t become a high-performing team overnight.

There are many activities we can do that help us build relationships with our teams but working agreements have a different focus. Working agreements help individuals decide how they want to work together as a team.

What is a working agreement?

A working agreement is a set of guidelines, created by the team, that describe how the team would like to work together. These guidelines should be aligned with their desired state of collaboration – if they were the best team they could be, what would they be doing?

Why do we need working agreements?

Working agreements are great for building alignment within teams. The act of developing a working agreement is a great step towards promoting open communication, collaboration, and transparency. Teams are able to decide how they want to work together and gives them a simple means to hold each other accountable.

What makes a good working agreement?

A good working agreement will be future-focused. It’s not what we’re currently doing, it’s what we should do in order to be the best team we can be. It should be built around the team’s values and what they will do to support those values. It focuses on the team’s processes, not the product they are developing.

An example might be:

We value collaboration, open communication and learning.
We agree to speak up when we disagree or have a question. We will address conflict head-on by acknowledging it, having a cooling-off period, and collaborating towards a solution.
We dedicate time to improving each and every sprint. We share knowledge to improve everyone’s skills.
We listen to everyone’s ideas before making a decision. Majority vote wins.
We put away distractions during meetings and focus on the topic at hand. We prepare for meetings and help each other staying on track during meetings.

How do we create a working agreement?

Creation of a working agreement is often facilitated by a ScrumMaster, project manager, or other project leader. There are many ways to facilitate this workshop, but here is an approach I’ve used successfully in the past.

Start with an introduction. Explain the idea of a working agreement and how it could benefit the team, then explain the process for creating it.
Identify the team’s values.
Brainstorm and share ideas of what to include in the working agreement that would support the team’s values. Narrow down the list to the team’s top 5-7 ideas.
Refine the agreement to ensure that each statement is helpful and represents how they want to be as a team in the future. Make sure statements are positive and action-oriented.
Finalize and ask each team member to “sign” it, either physically or virtually to confirm that they are willing to adhere to it.
Publish the working agreement in a location that will make it easily visible to the team.

When do we create a working agreement?

You should create a working agreement whenever a new team is formed, as part of other team building activities. The team should periodically review and update the working agreement to reflect the team’s desired state of being. It should also be revised when the team composition changes significantly, to ensure that it accurate represents the values of the current team.

How have working agreements benefited your teams?

Listening to Understand, Not to Save the World

Jennifer Rostal — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 19:00:27 +0000

One of the values in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development is “Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools”. People who embrace the agile mindset tend to put a heavy emphasis on people and teams. We dream about having cohesive, happy teams who can tackle any challenge. But what happens when we run into challenges?

Imagine the following scenario: you are a leader on a team. Generally speaking, the group works well together but there’s one individual whose behavior has changed and it’s causing challenges. Perhaps their attitude isn’t as positive, perhaps they are disrespectful to the team. What can you do?

My number one piece of advice is to talk with them. But the purpose of this conversation isn’t to tell them that they’re a problem, it’s not to be a superhero and fix all their problems. The purpose is to listen.

Start by always assuming positive intent. It’s highly unlikely the individual is purposely trying to have a negative impact on the team. Until you understand the person, you can’t understand the reason for their behavior. You never know what someone else is going through. By having a conversation and truly listening, they may identify the challenge and come up with ideas to address it.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. You can start out with something as simple as “how are you doing?” This open-ended question gives them the opportunity to share their feelings. Listen carefully to the response, with your whole being. You should listen not only for what’s said, but for what’s unsaid, for the underlying emotion. Give them a chance to share their challenges without interruption.

Once the individual has shared, ask how you can help, “What I can do to support you?” is a great question. It’s a question that shows you care and gives them the opportunity to tell you what will be most useful to them. You’re not forcing them to accept your help, but you’re showing your willingness to provide support.

Building relationships with the people on your team will help make these conversations easier. They’ll be more willing to open up and tell them what’s truly bothering them, which will lead to better outcomes for the team.

Next time you notice that someone isn’t acting like their normal self, offer to listen. You can’t – and shouldn’t – try to solve all of their problems, but you’d be amazed how big an impact listening with compassion can have. Try it.

Advice for Starting Your Career at Perficient

Jennifer Rostal — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 16:23:01 +0000

Recently I had the opportunity to introduce our Bright Paths graduates to Scrum, as well as facilitating Scrum Foundations and Product Owner 101 workshops for some of our new colleges hires. During that time I found myself sharing some of my advice for being successful in their careers with us. While I was focused on helping our new colleagues here at Perficient, I think most of my advice is broadly applicable.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and learn everything you can

A willingness to ask questions suggests the person has a growth mindset, a desire to learn more and be the best that they can be. So often people reach out to me and preface their question with “I’m sorry to bother you”. It’s never a bother. I’m thrilled to see someone wanting to learn more! The more questions you ask, the more you’ll learn. In fact, this is something look for when interviewing candidates for employment.

Fresh eyes are always helpful

New employees are likely to join a project team that’s been working together for a long time. You might think you need to try to fit in, but never underestimate what you can offer to the team. You bring new observations and fresh ideas to a team. Don’t be afraid to share them during the team’s retrospective. You may share something that the team hasn’t previously thought of that will bring about valuable change.

Get involved and build your network

There are many ways for you to get involved at Perficient and meet people with similar interests. Get involved in your business unit, an internal initiative, join the Agile Community, or one of our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) like Women in Tech or Perficient’s Giving ERG. It’s a great way to get to know your colleagues and to expand your knowledge.

Discover what you love and pursue it

Perficient gives you the opportunity to develop a diverse set of skills and learn about a wide variety of technologies and industries. Trying many things helps you find what you truly love. For me, it was Scrum. I took advantage of training opportunities, developed relationships with other agilists, and ultimately started the Agile Community here at Perficient. This passion and involvement led to opportunities to participate in Scrum-focused projects, provide training to our colleagues and clients, and participate in the sales process.

Take control of your career

Your manager and general manager want you to succeed – and be happy doing it. As you discover the things you love or identify things you want to try, make sure you tell them. Your manager can be on the lookout for upcoming projects or internal initiatives that align with your interests. The key here is that communication – if you do not discuss your interests and wishes, they won’t know what to look for.

You have the opportunity to create the career you wish to have. Be your own best advocate and you’ll end up with a job you love!

It’s Okay to Fail

Jennifer Rostal — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:00:47 +0000

One of the benefits of taking an agile approach to product development is the opportunity to make mistakes, to learn from them and to improve. Our sprints and frequent releases work to our advantage, giving us the chance to inspect and adapt. We can fail fast, reflect on the experience and quickly change direction to meet the needs of the customers and our team.

We build a healthy relationship with failure by failing fast and learning from our mistakes so we don’t repeat them. If you haven’t stopped to think about what the problem or mistake has taught you, you’re far more likely to make the same mistake again.

So what does failing fast look like?

Let’s look at it from the product side first. Our regular sprints and releases give Product Owners an opportunity to quickly adapt to feedback, leading to a better product and happier customers. At the end of each Sprint we have a Sprint Review. This gives the team the opportunity to hear from their stakeholders about the features that were created. We also want to have good feedback mechanisms in place for our customers. If we do, after each release we will know if we’ve missed the mark, giving us the opportunity to react swiftly. We learn quickly what our customers want – and what they don’t.

Now let’s look at the team. Frequent retrospectives allow us to reflect on many aspects of our team, including our people, relationships, processes, and tools. As a result of these discussions, the team will identify opportunities and come up with an experiment they would like to try during the next sprint to improve. Not all experiments will be successful, but all provide the opportunity to learn.

Failing fast allows you to minimize the impact of your failure and quickly apply the lessons it taught you. When we’re working in an agile team we are able to confine our risk to a single sprint, reducing impact to the product as a whole.

One of the best things a ScrumMaster can do for their team is let them know that it’s okay to fail sometimes. If a team member knows that, they will be open when they run into problems, allowing the whole team to help and to learn from it.

You can learn just as much from failing as from succeeding – as long as you take the time to do it!

When was the last time you failed fast? What did you learn from it?

5 Ways to Test an Idea Without Spending a Fortune

Jennifer Rostal — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 16:13:00 +0000

Inspiration is all around us. That inspiration can come from something we see or hear while going about our daily lives, from our own experiences, from our customers or from internal stakeholders.

Suddenly you find that ideas start to flow and the excitement builds. You get carried away and want to start developing right away. But are all your ideas really the right ones for your product? How can you know?

Here are five quick tests you can run to see if your idea is a good fit for your product and your customers, cheaply and effectively.

1. Does it support your vision?

If you read my previous blog post, Does Your Team See the Big Picture, then you understand the importance of having a vision and sharing it with your team. Consider how your idea fits in with the vision for your product and make sure that the idea supports your vision rather than deviating from it.

2. Does it help you progress towards your goals?

Review your product goals. Your new idea should take you a step closer to achieving one of your goals. If you cannot clearly articulate which goal you’ll make progress on, this idea might not be a good one. You can also consider the size of the step that would be taken in the direction of the goal to see if there is a way to adapt your idea to reach your goal even sooner.

3. Have a cooling off period

It’s easy to get carried away in the moment. Force yourself to set the idea aside for 24, 48 or even 72 hours before coming back to it. Are you still as convinced about your idea after you’ve spent some time away from it? Or has some of the shine rubbed off?

4. Get feedback

Reach out to the people that make up your target audience for the new idea and find out if it resonates with them. Speak to actual customers or users of the product, not just stakeholders. Does it meet a need? What problem does it solve? Would they use it? How would they make it better? If the idea seems to be falling flat, maybe this isn’t the right audience or the right idea.

5. Design the smallest possible experiment

Find the smallest, cheapest and easiest way to test your idea and get feedback. It could be as small as putting a link on a website to see how many people click on it. You might consider a low fidelity prototype for small-scale usability testing. You could consider crowd sourcing funding to get confirmation that your idea will be something customers think is worth paying for. Think small and be creative – don’t waste money on the feature until you know you’re creating something your customers want.

If your idea passes these tests, build it iteratively and incrementally. Once you have identified the set of features that must be released in order to start receiving value from the new idea, try to cut it down even further so that you move forward with the absolute minimum required. When a new feature resonates with your customers this it will ideally become self-funding, generating enough value to pay for future iterations itself. If it does not then it would be wise to find out why not before proceeding with additional development.

If your idea doesn’t pass these tests, it’s time to reconsider.

These five simple, inexpensive tests give you tools to determine if your investment will result in your desired outcome. Take the time to ensure that your new idea will help you achieve your product goals and delight your customers.

Does Your Team See the Big Picture?

Jennifer Rostal — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 16:25:11 +0000

If I were to ask one of your team members “what are you building?”, what are they more likely to answer?

I’m adding a couple of checkboxes to the “Subscriptions” page
I’m working on a feature that allows us to learn how and when a customer wants to hear from us. This will allow us to send them timely, targeted messages. We expect this will lead to a 5% increase in our online sales for registered customers.

I suspect the majority answer is A. They are hyper-focused on a specific feature but have lost sight of the big picture – assuming they ever understood it in the first place.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone! So how can we help our teams start to see their work as a valuable contribution to the product rather than a small piece of functionality?

Prior to beginning development, you should share the big picture with the project team. You can review it periodically to help keep it in mind throughout the product’s lifecycle. Share your product vision and goals so that the team knows what it is that the product is intended to achieve. Share personas and user flows, so the team knows who their users are and how they are intended to use the system.

There are many benefits to sharing the big picture with the team.

Better decisions – the team will be guided by the big picture and make decisions that support achieving it.
Shared goals – it ensures everyone is working towards a shared and well-understood goal.
Enabling focus – team members are able to focus on what’s needed to support the customer.
End-to-end flow – team members understand where each individual Product Backlog Item or piece of work fits into the overall flow of the product.
Better planning – team members are able to architect a system that will suit the product.
Reducing rework – when team members understand the big picture from the start, they understand how various pieces fit together and ensure that they don’t design themselves into a corner and have to go back to the drawing board and redesign it.
Satisfaction or fulfillment – a feeling that the work an individual or team does will truly have a positive impact on the product and on the customer.

It’s important to note that understanding the big picture upfront doesn’t mean that the requirements can’t change. The Product Backlog should be dynamic, incorporating feedback from stakeholders and customers as well as any new ideas. This feedback is critical to ensuring that you create the best product that you can. Regardless of the changes to the Product Backlog, the product vision does not change. The team should always be working towards the big picture.

Does your team see the big picture? How can you help make sure everyone is on board?

READY TO GROW YOUR CAREER?

At Perficient, we continually look for ways to champion and challenge our talented workforce with interesting projects for high-profile clients, encourage personal and professional growth through training and mentoring, and celebrate our people-oriented culture and the innovative ways they serve Perficient and the community.

Visit our Careers page to see career opportunities and more!

Go inside Life at Perficient and connect with us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.

Demonstrating Leadership without Authority

Jennifer Rostal — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 19:00:57 +0000

A colleague recently reached out to me asking for advice on growing skills and obtaining certifications to meet their goals of being given the role of leader. Our conversation ended up focusing on how certifications and skills are essential, but it’s practicing key skills and taking initiative that benefit you more. While the title may take time to reach, the opportunity to earn recognition as a leader may be closer than one might expect!

So what’s the secret?

Showing leadership without having authority.

You can do many things to show leadership without having an official title that makes you a leader. You can show leadership both within your team and show thought leadership within your company. Be a good role model of the skills and characteristics you feel an excellent leader embodies

You don’t have to step in and run the team; it’s about stepping up and helping the team move forward and improve. This could include:

Sharing ideas – freely share your ideas with your team members but hold them lightly. Not every idea will work well for the team, so don’t let one rejection stop you from sharing ideas in the future.
Listening to others – be a person your team knows will always be willing to listen. You don’t have to have all the answers, even as a leader, and you just have to be willing to listen.
Step up when there are challenges – be selfless. When your team is having a problem, step up and help. Lead the charge to solve the issue.
Take initiative – if you see something that needs to be done, do it. You don’t have to make a big deal about it because people will notice. If the official project leader is going to be away, volunteer to take on some of their responsibilities while they are out. It’s a great way to learn.
Offer help and knowledge – help your team members when they need it. Share the knowledge that you have for the betterment of the team, not just yourself.

Showing thought leadership within the company is also a great way to show you are learning what it takes to be a great leader. Some ideas might include:

Participate in internal projects – look for opportunities to be part of internal projects outside of your regular project work. These allow you to try new things, practice leadership skills, and increase your visibility.
Share your knowledge – does your company have internal groups or communities of practice, like Perficient’s Agile Community? Do they have periodic lightning talks or lunch and learns? Volunteer to give a speech! It is excellent practice and gives you more credibility on your topics of interest. In addition, teaching others is a great way to validate your own understanding of a topic.
Write a blog post – if your company has a blog, internal or external, take advantage of it! Practice your writing skills, articulating your ideas clearly, and use it to help build your thought leadership credentials.

Practicing leadership without authority or title is a great way to build your leadership skills and your reputation. When new challenges or projects arise, people will think of your name. You’ll find yourself with increased opportunities, helping you become the leader you want to be and advance towards the title you want.

How do you show leadership in your team or organization?